Thanks RMG.... although I cannot take any credit for the Just for Today concept.
It is a principle used widely in 12-step recovery. We view our recovery and sobriety by making joices just for today.
We have discovered that a huge part of many of our problems has been with our thinking and trying to live in yesterday and tomorrow. Yet this never works and leaves us ineffective and unhappy in today.
Many of us resent or regret out past to a degree that we are stuck stewing about it today. We unknowingly sacrifice our todays over the pains and regrets of the past.
At the same time, we have discovered that we also fear the future or live in an unrealistic day dream of the future. Again to the exclusion of the present day.
Many of us said, I will stop drinking tomorrow. Or after this event or that event or whatever. Yet that day never came.
The one and only day we have any control over is today. We can only affect choices of today.... not tomorrow. And the past is gone. So the process of recovery centres largely around living and making choices just for today.
It also takes the pressure off of trying to do something for the rest of our lives when we dont know what life will serve us up. It is too big of a task. Life proves this over and over. How many of us had spouses who swore before God and witnesses to love us forever for better or worse, etc? Yet that one-time decision fizzled over time for any number of reasons.
Not only did some of our ex's leave us, many of them hurt us in the most agonizing ways. Not to offload blame here... because we also would have had a part in not fulfilling our one-time wedding vows. Frankly, wedding vows don't seem to work.
For that reason, I feel more that I will love my wife one day at a time. I will make choices for today that affect today regarding my marriage. For the positive. I believe that this will result in the future unfolding in a more positive way than if I conspire about tomorrow today.
The Bible teaches a few things about this. Someone else mentioned in a previous post that Jesus taught "take no thought for tomrrow because today has enough worries of its own". This is what I am talking about.
We had a guy speak at our AA meeting last night who is sober over 55 yers. He got sober in 1953. He is almost 90. Ask him how he did it an he will tell you, he just made a decision daily and stuck to it. He has stayed sober for a lifetime, one day at a time.
For me, this has proven to be a much better way to look at life. I feel far less stress and worry. Far less regret. Far less depression. Things don't overwhelm me like they used to.
And as for the past, I have surrendered it. It happened. It is over. Where I have been wrong or hurt others in the past, I seek at a realistic pace to make amends for those events. Where amends cannot be made, I just let the event go.
I can look back and learn, but I dont have to agnoize, regret, or resent. I am not fully perfect at this yet, but I am much much better and life is much much better for it. There is so much to say on a matter like this but I will leave it at that. It really does work.
